Water is commonly used in mine drilling operations. For example, water is used in tunnel drilling, in hydro excavation, in oil and gas exploration and in dredging operations. Such operations create sludge containing fine particulates that must be disposed of at a very high cost. In some underground mining operations, water may be in short supply due to availability or accessibility conditions.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a process to separate the water from the sludge and to reuse it in subsequent drilling operations. The benefits of such a process include reducing environmental problems created from turbidity and contaminants in the water, reduced costs due to abrasion on pumps, pipes and valves and enabling the recovery of high value minerals from the solids portion of the sludge.